Mother Mary

On tap this week is A24's hugely anticipated Mother Mary, a psychosexual pop thriller that reunites director David Lowery with the indie studio for a third round, following A Ghost Story and The Green Knight. Lowery himself called it a "weird, weird film" at the Melbourne International Film Festival—so expectations are appropriately, uh, weird? In that lovely A24 way we've come to expect.

The film follows iconic pop star Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) as she reunites with her former costume designer and erstwhile best friend Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel) after a period of estrangement and on the eve of Mary’s comeback performance. Hunter Schafer, FKA Twigs, and Kaia Gerber round out the supporting cast. Comparisons to Vox Lux, Phantom Thread, and Black Swan have quickly emerged in early reactions, and rightly so.

As you might expect from an A24 film with a strong musical bent, Mother Mary features all-original music from composer Daniel Hart, Lowery's longtime collaborator, alongside original songs written by industry powerhouses Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift of course, and many others such as Lana Del Rey), Charli XCX (who has been deeply involved with the film industry as of late), and FKA Twigs (who also appears in the film). Anne Hathaway brings these to life as the in-universe pop star Mother Mary, who is—and here's the twist—wrestling with demons. Possibly literal ones.

The trailer opens with the protagonist backstage, with rising, wordless vocals and later choir. Quickly we're introduced to Coel's Sam. At 0:23 as these two reunite, the synths play a pulsing, steady beat—almost optimistic, with piano added in, meandering between the home chord and a minor third up. Notice the sync point at 0:42 as Sam rips the fabric to create Mother Mary's new outfit—energy in creation. At 0:48 the song enters a dramatic pause for Sam's playful barb ("I don't want to break my streak... of not listening to your music").

At 0:51 the music and visuals darken considerably, with a much lower, more menacing synth alongside an atmospheric concert wide shot and an opportunity to flaunt the musical stars through title cards—FKA Twigs, Charli XCX (how many film projects has she been involved with lately?), and Jack Antonoff (a rare instance where a producer has achieved star power with the general public). At 1:07 Sam simply smiles and says "you'll see," when asked if she's making Mary a "hate dress"—a tension that is as playfully dramatic as it is potentially horrific. This is where A24's reputation comes into play in terms of expectations—really, the entire project is heavily informed by expectations and fandoms regarding the studio as well as the musical collaborators, to the point where the actors' star power is almost incidental. This is a compelling inversion of the way films usually attract audiences' attention—through actors' name recognition.

The trailer then directly addresses those expectations with a not-so-sly reference to the director’s earlier work: "this is not a ghost story; this is not a love story", we are told through title cards—"this is a prayer; a song". At 1:33 we get what sounds like a Charli XCX track, performed by Mary on stage, followed by an incredibly discordant chord at 1:39 as we see a top-down view of what looks like some kind of satanic ritual. We see snippets of what is to come, such as what looks like a blood sacrifice at 1:58 (note the horrific squelch) and a vulnerable, exposed Mary at 1:59 as Sam calmly notes "we're reinventing you". It’s the added foley sounds that tip the audience off to the fact that this is not a music video but a horror film.

The soundtrack doesn't sound like typical pop—as Popviewers notes, the snippets feel "like they were pulled from the lead character's inner thoughts." Adding to this creative volatility, Hathaway reportedly ad-libbed her onstage singing performances during production before actually receiving the final songs—an approach that seems to permeate the entire project.

Mother Mary lands in theatres April 24, 2026.

— Curtis Perry